1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game chip, and more specifically to a game chip enabling data to be read by a read device such as an IC card reader/writer, etc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, among games familiar to a large number of people, there are games in which a player determines how much he or she bets by placing game chips at an optional position on a game table. A game of this type can be, for example, roulette, card games such as poker, blackjack, etc.
As various amusement facilities have become widespread, equipment that allows a gaming machine arranged in an amusement place and such as a game arcade, a casino, etc. to provide a player with more realistic and true-to-life feeling has been introduced, and a number of gaming machines of above-mentioned types have become popular in the market.
Some gaming machines of above-mentioned types request a player to input a target of a bet and the number of chips for the bet by pressing a button through a so-called control panel. These gaming machines are not accompanied by an operation of a player placing game chips, thereby lacking the realistic and real-to-life feeling in playing a game.
Accordingly, there is a proposed technology of embedding an IC chip and an IC tag in a game chip, reading the game chip containing the IC chip, etc. by a gaming machine using a reader/writer, and processing the read data as the input of a player. The technology is disclosed by, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-196634 (paragraph [0014]), Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-085504 (FIG. 1), Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-021648 (paragraph [0023], FIG. 7), etc.